“Inbound tourism”

I went to an “Inbound tourism” symposium on last Wednesday.
I wanted to listen to David Atkinson’s talk. He is a special advisor of Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO). He talked about how to further improve tourism in Japan.

Japan’s biggest strength is “natural”.

According to him, the tourism industry occupied around 10% of the GDP of the whole world. The number of tourists to Japan ranks 14th in in the world in 2016. In the international tourist revenue ranking, Japan is the 11th place in the world in 2016.
Japan is unique in 4 aspects; nature, climate, culture, food.
Japan’s biggest strength is “natural”.
Majestic nature is a tourism asset and can earn more revenue than culture. Since natural sightseeing activities usually require long-term stay, tourists tend to spend more money.

Not enough five stars hotels in Japan

On the other hand, the biggest problem is that there are not enough five stars hotels in Japan. U.S.A has 755, Thailand has 110, Japan has 28, even Bali island has 42.
The success of tourism strategy is determined by the number of five stars hotels.
I learned the above from David Atkinson’s lecture.

I hope that many Japanese workers would work at five stars hotels in the future.

I realized how attractive and valuable Japan’s nature is from his speech.
It is important that many tourists come to Japan and are satisfied with Japan’s nature and stay longer and come back again in the future.
I hope that more five stars hotels would be built and rich tourists would spend more money. And I’m looking forward to seeing that many Japanese workers who can speak English would work at five stars hotels in the future.